Leaving Portimao by sunrise! Come Saturday and departure. It is just great to be on the water again.

To sum it up: Portimao offered us

(i)a rest and an opportunity to be tourists by coincidence (and get rid of a few crewmembers which is why you’ll not hear of Rob’s Jeremy and Rob in future blogs (unless it’s because we miss them for their good company AND for taking shifts on the rota....) Hope you are doing well, guys!

(ii)A great variety of beers: Super Bock in all sorts and sizes of glasses (....not missing real ales at all......)

(iii)The blessings of sunshine – to dry off the deck after the rainfalls (feeling a bit sorry for the big group of Germans at the nearby hotel who had booked a week in the Algarve.....but they had Super Bock)

(iv)Beach bars with wi-fi (the daily great escape for particularly Nicole and her Jeremy – he will still be referred to as Nicole’s Jeremy)

(v)The beaches which we had almost to ourselves, but hardly ever used (apart from Stephen with the Scottish skin which is used to cool water)

(vi)The good company of friendly, neighbouring yachts (among others the dinghy from the next door racing boat, which tried to make a jump for rescue in a nightly gust......)

(vii)A Casino, a tattoo shop and a Spar supermarket (the last mentioned frequently visited by Maggie on her daily one-person shopping sprees – the Casino and the tattoo shop on the way to the Spar – the rest we will leave up to speculation, however I will mention here that she did not change to a t-shirt on this sunny day......hhhmmmm)

(viii)Beautiful lightning as the good-bye fireworks Friday night

All in all we do all agree that this was not the worst place to be “blown in” by the weather. But I cannot hide the fact that we were all keen to get going – Emily was up and busy before sunrise! Even I was up early (before Emily in fact.....not often seen – she has greeted my mornings with a “good afternoon” occasionally while we have been here......not without reason)

A fishing boat overtook us on the way out to the swells – which I may add were quite big, leaving some of us a bit queasy....been motoring all day in the bright, bright sunshine. Beautiful day! Or did Nicole get wet though? Don’t remember.....

Otherwise a quiet day: a 366 m container ship and a massive red thing crossed our way today. No lobster-traps. Great sunset dinner – Rob’s recipe apparently! No – just joking – it was definitely worth the wait, Chef!